The use of immunoassay for detection of a wide range of biological compounds in medical or veterinary context is quite widespread and methods and variations for conducting assays are well known. Recently, in fact, much effort has concentrated on improving the convenience of the assay by redesigning the format. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,427,781 describing a particle agglutination method which depends on the ability of antibodies to desired small molecular weight haptens to agglutinate particles to which the haptens are attached. Another variation is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,447,526 which describes an assay where advantage is taken of changes in the properties of a label when a specific binding to the reagent by the hapten to be analyzed occurs. These disclosures are only two of hundreds which describe specific analytical techniques to enhance the convenience or sensitivity of assays that depend on specific interactions between antibody molecules (or fragments of antibodies) with analytes to be detected.
Because of the dependence on this specific interaction, the applicability of an immuno based assay to any particular analyte depends upon the ability to obtain antibodies appropriate for the required specific interaction. There are two aspects to be noted: First, the ability of antibody or fragment thereof to discriminate between the analyte and other materials which may be contaminants in the sample to analyzed must be adequate, i.e., the specificity must be high. Second, the ability of the antibody or fragment to bind tightly to the analyte is also important, i.e., the affinity will determine the sensitivity of the assay. U.S. Pat. No. 4,376,110 to David, for example, discloses use of monoclonal antibodies to improve the affinity properties of the desired interaction.
There are a multitude of analytes which are candidates for detection to which specific and strongly binding antibodies are difficult to raise using standard in vivo techniques. As is well known, the usual procedures for obtaining antibodies to a particular substance involve administering the substance to a suitable subject such as a rat or mouse, and relying on the immune system of the subject to produce B-cells capable of secreting the appropriate antibody. Either polyclonal antisera are obtained for use directly in the assays, if the titers are sufficiently high, and the results are sufficiently satisfactory, or a B-cell source such as the spleen is used to provide fusion partners to obtain hybridomas capable of secreting the desired antibodies. These hybridomas can be screened for production of antibodies specific to the desired analyte. These processes work well if the material is sufficiently large to be immunogenic, sufficiently nontoxic so that the animal is not killed before the antibodies are raised, and sufficiently inexpensive that adequate amounts can be obtained to carry out this procedure. This is not always the case.
The problem of inadequate size can often be solved by conjugating analyte or a modified form thereof to a carrier which provides the required size to confer immunogenicity on what would otherwise be ignored by the immune system as too small. It has been possible to raise antibodies to certain specific molecules in this category by utilizing this now rather conventional technique. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,456,691 discloses a process to prepare antibodies reactive with polycholinated biphenyl (PCB) by chemically modifying the PCB and conjugating it to a carrier. A similar procedure is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,530,786 for the herbicide atrazine. However, such an approach is cumbersome, must be redesigned for every individual analyte, and is not assured of success since the antibodies raised by the conjugate may not in fact be directed to the analyte, but rather to the junction regions between the analyte and the carrier. It is notably more difficult to obtain "neutralizing" antibodies--i.e., those reactive with the analyte itself--by this method.
Whether or nor the problem of toxicity is sufficiently grave to defeat the entire process is, of course, also a matter of chance. With regard to availability of quantities of antigen required, the necessity for minimizing this parameter depends, of course, on the particular antigen.
An analogous problem arises in a therapeutic context. Though still in a developmental stage, the therapeutic procedure of administering monoclonal antibodies immunospecific for a subject's own tumors, with or without the conjugation of label or a toxin, for therapy and/or diagnosis, has achieved some positive results. One approach to acquiring the monoclonal antibodies useful in this context is to isolate the tumor tissue and to use the tissue as an immunogen, followed by preparation and sorting of the derivative monoclonal antibodies using the Kohler and Milstein procedure and an appropriate screen. Clearly this is a cumbersome approach, since several months are required to effect sufficient immunization to allow for construction of the monoclonal antibody panel. By that time, the subject's condition may have deteriorated beyond redemption, or the tumor's antigenic profile may have changed substantially. If a suitable antibody could be selected from a large, already existent, panel, these difficulties could be overcome. A relevant panel for treatment of tumors already exists (Oldham, R. K., J Biol Resp Mod (1987) 6:227-234). Additional large panels can also be prepared using recombinant DNA technology. Techniques for screening this panel to obtain a suitable match would be useful in selecting the correct antibody for treatment.
This latter application is representative of the fact that the art offers no general method to obtain an antibody of desired affinity and specificity with regard to any antigen using a generic procedure workable and repeatable for all possible antigens.
The converse problem, i.e., finding a mimotope for a given antibody, has, however, been addressed by Geysen, H. M., PCT application WO86/00991, published 13 February 1986. The word "mimotope", as used hereinbelow, corresponds very roughly to the usage of this term in the Geysen application.